Lifestory

It’s a long story. It really started when I was 16 and my parents got divorced and I found out about all the shit my dad did in the past. I guess til then I had always unconsciously blocked out the fact that he beat up my mum and my older brothers. They also did a great job at covering it up and they were so protective of me. But when my mum left my dad (I was already living at my nanna’s and had forced my mum to leave him) and went through the divorce she finally broke down too and told me everything. And that’s when the guilt started taking over me. I had always been the protected one. The spoiled one. Since my dad wasn’t their dad, he always took it out on them. I found out that my oldest brother literally told him that if he ever laid a finger on me, he’d kill him. 
I started cutting myself. I started having massive panic attacks, I was very aggressive. Living with my dad’s mum, who always talked bad about my mum and denied everything my father had done, wasn’t helping. I remember picking up a knife and putting it to my throat just to get her to listen to me. My mum made me see a therapist but no one knew about the cutting. My PE teacher saw it once and I played it off by having a hysteric laughing fit. I used to play the clown to cover everything up. I also did that with my therapist and eventually after a few months, stopped going there. 
I focused on school and doing my A Levels, that kept me distracted. I also stopped the cutting, it wasn’t a conscious decision, I just did. When I was 19 I decided to go to uni to study American and Anglican Studies. But I didn’t like it and I didn’t want to admit that to myself and my family and friends. So I kept going. I didn’t want to feel like a failure, feel even more guilty. I decided to punish myself by not eating. I did not eat. I had a salad and a piece of bread for dinner and that was it. Nothing more. Every time I went home for a weekend or holiday, everyone would be so shocked. I’ve always been skinny, all my life but I was down to 47kg at 176cm. My mum said I had to come home or she would put me in hospital. But I kept going. Til I had a breakdown and left uni and moved back home within a day. It seemed then that all the pressure was gone. I could eat again and all my worries were gone. I was happy! I had a great summer and then in September of 2007, I moved to England.
I had already made friends there from various visits and I just felt so comfortable that I wanted to live there. I got a job and everything. Most of my friends were part of this indie band scene and we partied hard. And with hard, I mean hard. I took drugs, I drank alot. I would spend all the money I earned during the week on getting high. Mostly cocaine. But also speed, mdma, ketamine…literally everything but smack and crack. I did it all. I would go out on the friday night and then be awake all weekend, too high to sleep or eat, walking home on monday morning with eyes as big as carweels, like a zombie. But in the circle I was in, it was totally normal. Everyone did it. It wasn’t a big deal. I wasn’t physically addicted, but I would not go out without drugs. Because I knew it wouldn’t be fun. Even when I went to the pub on a saturday afternoon I would have a line of coke before going there. At 2pm. 
Luckily nothing ever happened to me, I lost weight again but gained it again, my sleeping pattern fucked up so bad though. My friends at home in Austria knew. Well my best friend Judith did. And she was so worried and I still hate myself for it. Because I was acting as if it wasn’t a big deal while she was worried sick. But she also knew that I had to get it out of the system, whatever it was. So she just never said anything.

In September 2009 I moved back to Austria. I was worn out. Partied out. Everything seemed so superficial all of a sudden. The life I was living, the people in it. Everything. At home, I tried to find a job and really struggled. I missed partying. I missed the drugs. I became so depressed that I wouldn’t leave my room. The excuses I made were always the same: ‘Oh it’s so boring here. Going out was so much more fun in England. You’re all so boring.’ etc. And while that was true, I also knew I was just using it to avoid people altogether. Including my family. 80% of the friends I had before leaving Austria had all moved on, with their boyfriends, their babies. And I was restless as always. It didn’t hurt that I had lost them. I didn’t give a fuck. I didn’t feel anything. That was even scarier because I had always been a really emotional person. Slowly but surely I stopped eating again. Gradually though, I didn’t want anyone to notice. I also turned into the biggest bitch on the planet. I’m not even joking. Whenever I had to be with my family I would sit in a corner, giving everyone the evils, making bitchy remarks at everyone. I had a bad attitude. I made everyone around me feel totally low-grade. I talked down on everyone. Like ‘deal with it, bitch or leave me the fuck alone’. I forced everyone to live with that too. I wanted everyone to accept me the way I was. Cos I loved it. It wasn’t an act I put on. I really was like that. And I enjoyed it. I couldn’t help it. And not eating was another way of controlling myself. No one could take that from me. 
I eventually got a job but it was physically challenging and after three weeks I literally had a mental and physical breakdown. I broke down crying in front of my mum and told her that I didn’t want to live anymore. It’s not that I wanted to kill myself, although I had thought about it but I just didn’t want to exist anymore. That’s why I didn’t eat. I just wanted myself to disappear…by getting tinier and tinier. My mum is a trained social worker. She knows about all that psychological stuff and even I did, since I did my A Levels in Psychology. But try using your knowledge on yourself, right. She told me that she had waited for me to break down. She knew it had only been a matter of time. After crying for a whole day, quitting my job and my mum pulling some strings, I saw my doctor the next day and he admitted me to the hospital on April 9th 2010.

And I started feeling like Winona Ryder in Girl, Interrupted. Fuck, I was HER. It was almost laughable. It was a normal, general hospital and I was free to go anywhere, anytime. Most of the people on my ward were there because of depression, burn-out, some sort of addiction or dementia. They did all sorts of tests with me, I had to tell them my lifestory over and over again. Funnily enough they didn’t monitor my eating, they just gave me these disgusting Ensure drinks (protein shakes which have like 800 calories) but I hardly ever drank them. They decided that the bigger issue were my depressions and so they put me in all those different therapies. Like sport therapy, cognitive therapy, creative writing etc etc. They also put me on sleeping pills which didn’t help at all til they upped the dosage. After two weeks they also started me on Prozac (an anti-depressant) which obviously didn’t start working straight away, it’s normal that it takes a couple of weeks. But I had the worst side effects. I felt sick, constantly. I lost all appetite I had left. I had the worst night sweats. I was constantly tired and dizzy. My blood pressure was 40 to 60 at one point. They diagnosed me with depression and possible borderline and possible anorexia. And after four weeks in hospital I left just to go into rehab a few weeks later. That time between hospital and rehab was like heaven. The prozac was slowly starting to work and I was home alone which means I didn’t eat anything. At all. Well maybe a chocolate bar. And that was it. When my niece came over to my flat after work we would order pizza though and I would eat like a champ. 
I still had panic attacks though, especially when I was near a bridge or a balcony. I had this physical urge to jump. I don’t think I would have done it but that feeling just ripped my insides apart. I think if my dog Paula hadn’t been there I would have self-harmed again. But she jumped on my lap when she saw me freaking out and wouldn’t leave again until I was able to call my mum to pick me up. My doctor then put me on a higher dosage of the anti-depressant. 
In June I started rehab in Germany. It was totally different from what I was used to in hospital. It was like a spa. Well, at least it looked like a spa. I soon realised it wasn’t anything like it. I was put into the eating group, unlike the doctors at the hospital, the doctors in rehab told me straight away that I had an eating disorder. Which of course, I rebelled against. I was like ‘You dickheads, don’t you know I’m depressed! You’re so stupid.’ etc. but I was only able to keep that up for a few days. I had to talk to a nurse every day, I had to check in with them twice a day, I had to do drug and alcohol tests cos of my ‘history’, I wasn’t allowed any sports, not even swimming, I was only allowed one 30min walk in the garden, of course I wasn’t allowed to leave the premises, I wasn’t even allowed to use the stairs. 
Then the rules at breakfast, lunch and dinner. Fuck. We had this list of things we had to eat, every day. The same shit. We HAD to finish it. Within 20mins. We weren’t allowed to take longer than 20mins. We weren’t allowed to get up during dinner times. We were only allowed one glass of water or tea. We weren’t allowed to talk about the food or anything food-related or the therapies. The list of rules was endless. I luckily can’t remember them all. 
I was the oldest of our group. Most of the girls were 14-18 years old. And I was kinda like their older sister, I took care of them. My therapist said that was my biggest problem. To always care for others but not for me. But in my eyes I was a selfish lil bitch. So I had to make up for it. My therapist was so fierce though. She was russian and reminded me of one of these russian secret service agents, she was really tough but so lovely and she fucking always knew! She just KNEW. She also told me that the doctors at the hospital totally misdiagnosed me and that I really did have borderline and obviously the eating disorder was a symptom of it. You see, people have this wrong idea of what a borderline personality disorder is. They think it’s all about cutting yourself. But it means self-harming in alot of ways. There isn’t just one way of hurting yourself. I hurt myself in many ways. I denied myself food, I denied myself love and feeling something, I did drugs, I had a very wrong self-image of myself. 
I was in rehab for 7 weeks. I could have stayed longer, my therapist advised me to but I felt ready to take on the world again. I wanted to have some weeks of summer left before uni. I had gained weight, not much due to a newly diagnosed lactose intolerance but I managed to ‘meet their standards’. I also dealt with my past, my dad and the whole guilt thing. My therapist let me write a list of things that make me, ME. And I realised there was so much more to me than my skinny body. Or my bitchiness. There are good and bad things. But it makes me who I am. I don’t wanna miss any of it.
I can’t even begin to tell you how much I learned in rehab. About myself and about people around me. I learned how valued I am as a human being. How much of an impact my words and actions can have on people, both positive and negative, but luckily in rehab it was mostly positive. I realised I can make people smile and laugh. And really mean it! And be happy about it. Be happy about anything. Feeling anything. It’s weird. But really good.
Also, this whole situation brought my nanna and my mum really together. They hadn’t been talking for years but when I went to rehab, they put aside their differences and were there for each other. So that’s another good thing that came out of it. My dad on the other hand…well let’s just say he didn’t visit and I didn’t want him to visit.

I stopped taking the Prozac a couple of months ago. I just didn’t feel the need for it anymore. I’m happy. I’m the happiest I’ve ever been. I’m still me though. I’m still a bit of a bitch. But sometimes the world deserves it. Lol. I love my life. And I don’t feel bad about it anymore. I’ve been through hell and anyone who wants to judge me for the things I did, go ahead. Call me a psycho, call me a druggie, call me an anorexic whore all you want. Because at least, I had the guts to face my problems. I had the guts to take on a fight. I had the guts to WIN this fight. So no one outthere should judge me because I’m a winner. And you can be too.

And to anyone who took the time to read this and feels related to this, you should take on a fight too.

<3